Just watched Harry Dent justify his Dow 3,000 (no typo) prediction in 2.5 years in an interview with CNBC’s Maria Barturomo. He based his assumptions on the aging U.S. baby boomer, U.S. consumer spending and saving (lack thereof) patterns, and the mounting burden of government debt. Maria clearly wasn’t buying it. But she was apparently too polite (or perhaps too young to know) to dent Mr. Dent’s story with:
“But Harry, didn’t you predict a Dow 40,000 (no typo) by 2011 in your best-seller The Roaring 2000s? Haven’t you learned, from experience, that prognosticators like yourself inevitably (except when they luck out) play the fool? And by the way, the U.S. represents a mere 4% of world population. Certainly the demographics are vastly different in other parts of the globe. And all of the Dow components are multi-national companies. As Marty Mazorra 🙂 recently blogged, there’s simply too many moving parts to know for sure where things will be tomorrow, let alone two and a half years from now.”